VirginiaBrave
Well-known member
Garcia is winning that 3rd base job for '17. Good thing so money can be put into a pitcher, an OFer and/or catcher.
Say what you want, but
- Thread starter VirginiaBrave
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cajunrevenge
Well-known member
Say what I want? Don't mind if I do.
Taxation is theft.
Taxation is theft.
nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
I would throw in Jace Peterson as part of the third base picture (presuming Albies takes over second not long into the 2017 season). The combined performances of Garcia/Ruiz/Peterson could persuade the FO to shift resources elsewhere.
msstate7
Well-known member
Where would you throw the money? SP? Catcher? Trade Markakis and throw it in RF?
zitothebrave
Connoisseur of Minors
How though?
I'm assuming it's because he's done pretty well in his last 30 games. But even with that, he's still a well below average player on the year.
When I look at his numbers as a whole I see a guy who really doesn't do anything super well.
4.5 BB% is too low, 16.1 K% is fairly high for his .134 iso. One thing he does pretty well is hit a lot of line drives. But it's hardly an insane amount like say Freeman. He's not a great defender either. Basically he does nothing truly terribly, but nothing well either.
To me there's only a few positions we don't need to look at
1B - Freeman is a stud. If we were winning he'd be in the MVP discussion.
2B - Only because of ALbies and Swanson
SS - Ditto
CF - Ender or Mallex should be able to hold this down.
After that there's always room for improvement. I'm fine with letting Adonis play in 2017, we won't be winning that much then, but if we want to compete there are a few things we have to do.
1. Get rid of Markakis and Kemp. We have no shot of winning with those 2. Markakis should be gone by the time we're competitive again, if we can't trade him, but getting him out is important as Mallex needs a place to play.
2. Find a catcher. We have nothing in the majors, nothing in the minors. I want to bring back Mac as a door jam. I like the idea of Mac for Kemp, prospect or 2 and cash. It gives the Yankees a guy who maybe finds some life in the AL, who seems to like playing in big cities. We get Mac to play C with Flowers for a bit and then move into a backup role when hopefully we have a young catcher ready.
3. Find a long term 3B. Kind of weird that we as the BRaves haven't found a replacement for Chipper. Francise that has 2 of the 5 best 3B of all time struggles to find another good one. Rio Ruiz could be a good 3B but his upper minors numbers don't inspire much confidence. I see a guy who has a high BB rate but a really high K rate and not much power. Looking at guys in the majors who I can see his K% and BB% aligning with over the last 3 seasons, they're all defensive stars at defensive premium positions or not that valuable Jason Castro, Melvin, Addison Russell, Chris Iannetta. We know Ruiz doesn't play a defensive premium position. My concern is that he's another Chris Johnson. A guy who has value, but shouldn't be a starter. I seriously hope he proves me wrong, but his drop in power and rise in K rate from A to AA and AAA doesn't get me excited like I was at the time of the trade.
4. Trade from pitching for hitting. Julio is a very good pitcher. Julio as a pitcher coudl very easily get hurt. If he's hurt he has no value. We should be shopping him this offseason for a young position player or a prospect haul. Again, I like the idea of the Rangers, they still have some talented prospects in their farm. There are other teams that would work as well. We need to use our strengthand trade established pitching for hitting while we have a stable of arms. Sure none may be as good as Julio, but that's not the game. Is Julio worth Sims + a better 3B, C, LF, RF, etc.? I don't think so.
zitothebrave
Connoisseur of Minors
Throw it at getting Kemp and Markakis out of town. With them on the books we won't be winning anytime soon. Too much wasted money.
msstate7
Well-known member
Probably not, but would money be better served replacing him, catcher, rf, or starting pitching?
Yes.
zitothebrave
Connoisseur of Minors
Assuming we have the ability to save up payroll for future seasons. Braves shouldn't be spending any money they don't have to. I'm not sure how things are run at the Liberty owned Braves though. I think it could be better served replacing him if we can add better value at 3B than any of the other positions. Also remember that money will be involved in getting rid of Markakis in RF. I can't imagine anyone takes him and his salary and we'd have to eat a nice chunk of it. Not many people are lining up at the door for an average hitter at an offensive premium position.Starting pitching we should invest nothing in. Only FA starting pitcher I'd be intersted in are the ones that are way too expensive, like Kershaw will be or Price was.
BRaevs should be using 2017 to trade off guys like Kemp, Julio and Markakis to make way for younger players. And in FA they should be looking for value. 2017 free agency sucks. It's one of the worst classes I ever remember. Catcher has a few interesting guys, but they're all over 30, and who wants to spend any real money long term on a catcher over 30 that isn't local hero Brian McCann? OF has a few options, Cespedes can opt out and hit FA again, Ian Desmond, Michael Saunders, Jose Bautista, Carlos Gomez and Gregor Blanco are all interesting. They also have flaws, Bautista is super old, Gomez and Blanco have sucked big time this year, Desmond sucked last year, and Saunders has had issues staying on the field. Cespedes would be the only one worth looking at, but if he's opting out of 2/50, then you can bet that he will want a ton of money. Something I'm not willing to pay for him. Good player, but he's not a star.
For pitchers, there are some guys I'd love to buy low on, but no one worth a big deal. To me a successful offseason would be if we can trade Kemp and Markakis, and bring in Reddick, Fister, and Salty as stop gaps.
zitothebrave
Connoisseur of Minors
And before that he hit .246/.299/.288
We can pick and choose samples.
I agree catcher is a bigger need. But who fills it? Wieters is the only good FA catcher and i don't want to sink a long term expensive deal on a defensive first catcher who spend 2014 and 2015 pretty much hurt all year.
And in the majors overall he's hit 271/303/434. Unless a deal presents itself (like Longo) I think staying the course with 3B is the way to go. If they are going to spend money it needs to be on someone to slot behind Julio.
Yeah. Put him at third if you don't care about winning anything, but he's no answer to any team trying to win games.
The power hasn't really been there but the walk rate has. I think Ruiz deserves a shot at some point next season to see what we have.